The route out of Vaen in the east was indeed bushy, but not lifeless. Wildflowers had somehow reclaimed the cracks in ancient stones, and fireflies danced like wandering thoughts between the trees. It had once been a trade route proven lost after the plague of forgetting. Now, it was the first stop taken on Yumi and Ren's new journey-by questing yet even more for places still wrapped in silence.
Every night, they lit a small lamp hung at their campfire, not for illumination, but for promise: that wherever they went, sent along the hint of a spark would be left behind.
[QUEST ACTIVE: Chronicle the Lost Lands] Objective: Visit the Silent Realms and awaken a forgotten emotion.
The intended first stop was Arken's Hollow, a mountain village high above the cloudline. It had once been known for its wind chimes-there were dozens of them strung between homes, always ringing, always singing-before the Null King's fall. And that was all.
Now it was silent.
Below-its entrance, they found crumbled huts, broken bridges, and hollow-eyed villagers moving through motions of life without awareness. Not sadness filled the air but absence. The very pain was taken away. Yumi came to a boy alone at the well. When she knelt beside him, he did not look up.
"Do you remember your name?" she said, a little softly.
He blinked once. Then shook his head.
Ren crawled close to their level kneeling. "Would you want to?"
Between them, the boy looked. A pause. A little nod followed.
That night saw the lantern lit at the well.
Yumi unhooked her satchel and took out the vial full of light, which the child gave them in Vaen. While pouring from the bottle, she stood in the flame.
There was nothing for a long time.
Then, the wind stirred.
One wind chime sways. Then, another. A soft melody, tentative and gentle, drifted through the air.
[LOCATION UNLOCKED: Arken's Hollow- Memory Resonance Initiated]
The villagers crawled out of their homes slowly. Some stared at the lantern. Some others closed their eyes and just started weeping without knowing why.
Stepping forward was a man whose hands were weathered and trembling.
"I remember," he said, almost a whisper. "My daughter's song. Her voice.
[QUEST PROGRESS: 1/7 Silent Realms Restored]
They stayed two more days teaching the villagers how to kindle their own memory lights, not magic—but emotion. Stories. Kindness. Connection.
Just before parting, the boy at the well took Yumi's hand and said, "My name is Kellan.
Thank you for helping me find it."
They continued on their way.
The second location, however, turned out to be the Marsh of Glass, where silence was not an absence but an echo. Every single word spoken would return to one distorted.
Laughter would come back as weeping; cries would return as hollow joy. It was a place, twisted by memory imbalances.
To cure it, however, you had to listen—not speak. For three days, even Yumi and Ren just have been sitting among the reeds, allowing such echoes to wash over them. Gradually they start mapping the distortions to understand more about the emotional misalignment.
Yumi channeled the broken echoes into lanterns lined in the marshways using Empath's Radiance.
They did not eliminate the echoes-they simply realigned them.
Once all the lanterns were set alight, the echoes fell into consonance. From the waters arose a voice: an ancient song sung by the first settlers of the marsh.
A lullaby.
[LOCATION UNLOCKED: Marsh of Glass – Echoes Calmed] [QUEST PROGRESS: 2/7 Silent Realms Restored]
Ren smiled as the last note faded. "Every place we go has its song."
Yumi nodded. "And every song has been waiting to be heard again."
They lined the way with lanterns, not as marker points, but as invitations.
"Let others come if they want," Yumi said. "This journey isn't just ours."
Thus was born the Lantern Trail.
Each one brought them closer not just to healing the world-but to understanding it.
Not every place could be saved. There wasn't a single echo that would allow them to return.
But where they could light a lantern, they did.
One story at a time.